Yu Hai gave China the lead after just six minutes of the Group A tie at Al Gharafa Stadium that China realistically had to win to keep alive their hopes of progressing but goals from Odil Akhmedov – his second of the tournament - and Alexander Geynrikh put Uzbekistan in control shortly after the break.

Hao Junmin's excellent free-kick squared the contest in the 56th minute but China were unable to add to their two goals and Qatar's 3-0 win over Kuwait saw the hosts through at their expense.

“First of all I have to say today the match is a great match, on behalf of all the staff I want to say thanks to my players, they did very well today,” said Fu.

“They tried their best but maybe just a few details and a bit of bad luck cost us the game today.”

Indeed, had Zhao Xuri's swerving 25-yard strike not come back off the bar in the 21st minute, the outcome could have been much different while a combination of poor finishing and inspired goalkeeping from Ignatiy Nesterov ensured Uzbekistan managed to secure the draw they needed to top the group.

Fu, though, could not criticise his young charges.

“We lost this match and there are many different reasons for this,” he added.

“We've learned a lot from these two matches. Today we had many chances but we lacked a little luck. If we solved the problem of our wayward shooting, maybe we could have changed the result.

“But you can see during the match, everyone stood up and everyone tried to change the result.”

Despite their early exit, Fu underlined the AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011 had proved invaluable to a team building towards qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

“Since this team got together, we have been focusing on qualifying for the World Cup. Now we end our journey in the Asian Cup but we have played three different matches and have had three different results. They were very good practice for our young players,” he insisted.

“I think our team did very well in this Asian Cup and got great experience but the result shows that we need to do a lot of work in the future.”